Pet
by Kelsey L Leigh
Summary: When Aizen Sousuke, former captain of the Fifth Division, defected from the Gotei 13, he left someone behind.  This is the story of Hinamori Momo, whose life was changed forever by one small, simple idea.
1. Precipice

**Summary: **When Aizen Sousuke, former captain of the Fifth Division, defected from the Gotei 13, he left someone behind. This is the story of Hinamori Momo, whose life was changed forever by one small, simple idea.

AiHina. More than slightly Sylvia Plath influenced, and based on the song 'Pet' by A Perfect Circle. No one can beat Shou Hayami, of course, but I always picture Aizen's English singing voice as Maynard James Keenan. Whenever I listen to this song, I can picture Aizen singing it to Hinamori.

**Warning: **This story is rated M. I do not hand out M ratings for the hell of it. This story contains the following mature content:

-Dark themes (attempted suicide, violence, death)

-Sexual content

-Aizen being a complete and utter bastard. (Dude. This alone warrants an M rating.)

Anyway, hope you like.

* * *

Pet

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Chapter 1

_Precipice_

* * *

She couldn't do it.

Her hands were shaking in the dark, and she could hear her own breathing, rough and ragged. She let out a hoarse frustrated gasp, felt the strain on her vocal chords and the sting in her eyes.

She couldn't scream, much as she wanted to. If she did that, then they would all know. And she couldn't let her division down.

Common sense told her it would only be a matter of time before she stopped being good enough for them, just as she hadn't been good enough for him. She should just give in now, give in and scream. They all deserved to know just how pathetic she was.

Or maybe they already knew. It wouldn't be hard for them to guess. After all, he'd abandoned them all. What kind of lieutenant was she, to make it possible for a captain to abandon his division?

She hadn't been a good enough subordinate towards him. She hadn't been strong enough for Captain Aizen. She hadn't been worthy of being his second-in-command.

And she still wasn't strong enough.

Her hands were still shaking, her Zanpakutou's blade rattling in its sheath. It wasn't fair to Tobiume, to force her to die in this way, but nothing except a Zanpakutou was capable of cutting a Shinigami. She supposed it was just as well. Tobiume would never have to join her in her suicide, because she wasn't strong enough to make the final move.

To her shame and self-disgust, tears welled up in her eyes. She was crying again, just as she'd cried when Captain Aizen's sword had entered her and come out the other side. She was crying, weak and useless and pathetic.

The fingers of her left hand reached in under the thin cotton of her nightgown. Even the healing Kidou of the Fourth Division had failed to completely erase the mark of Kyouka Suigetsu. Momo could feel the ridge of scar tissue, twisted and puckered and a few degrees cooler than the rest of her skin, no more than an inch or so long.

It was such a small, simple action. It had taken Captain Aizen less than a second to dispose of her. He had intended to kill her, and Momo wished he had. She would be better off dead than alive here and now, trying and failing to finish herself.

Failing. She had failed him. Otherwise, why would he have seen the need to get rid of her? He had taken Ichimaru Gin and Tousen Kaname with him. It couldn't be a question of loyalty. Momo knew that no one had been more loyal to Captain Aizen than she, no one had been more willing to lay down their life for him.

Of course, what he was doing now was wrong. He was betraying Soul Society, the cause she had worked for six years in the Academy to fight for. Momo knew that, and it hurt her heart to think that she hadn't been able to turn him back to the right path.

He hadn't ever seen her thoughts, her feelings, as important. She had quite simply ceased to matter to him, or never mattered to begin with. He had only wanted to dispose of her.

The fact that her beloved Captain Aizen had only ever wanted her gone, despite all she had given to him, all she had wanted to give to him -

She choked back another sob, or tried to. It escaped anyway.

She deserved to be disposed of.

Even now, she couldn't obey him in this last, most simple of ways.

Breath shuddering, Momo unsheathed Tobiume. She couldn't see the gleam of metal in the dark. It was if her Zanpakutou had become invisible, insignificant, unreal, just as she herself had in the end.

Her eyes overflowed and spilled. Warm tears rolled down her cheeks, and for a moment Momo let herself imagine with morbid fascination that they were blood instead of salt water.

She could feel Tobiume as if her Zanpakutou were part of her own body. Momo ran her fingertips along the blade, feeling the shiver as Tobiume tried to shrink away. She could even hear her frightened whispers.

_Please. Not again. _

_Don't do this to me. Don't make me do this to you. Not again. _

Momo drifted away from Tobiume's silent pleading. She focused purely on the physical sensation of cool sharp steel beneath her fingers, and felt the heat of crying in her face begin to drain away.

It was the only thing that seemed to help her now.

Sharp pain bit into her skin. Momo remembered a much worse pain. She remembered the feeling of solid steel sliding into her, the burning pain around the wound when Captain Aizen had pulled it out, the dark spots dancing before her vision and gradually grouping together.

In here, the whole world was dark. In here, no one would have to know. Not her squad, not Toushirou.

Momo laid Tobiume on the tiled floor next to her and put her hands together as if praying, intertwining her fingers. She could feel the blood, warmer than water, and smell it as well. It was a sharp smell like hot metal, a smell she'd never liked.

She was forcing the memory of that day on herself. The physical pain of the cuts on her fingers was distracting her from the real pain, and Momo hated herself for it. Gods knew she deserved to hurt.

At that thought, the tears welled up again. Momo buried her face in her hands, hiding in warm darkness. She could feel her fingers hot and stinging, and pictured what her face looked like. Swollen with crying and streaked with blood -

_Pathetic. _

She wasn't strong enough.

Momo cried, unable to hold it back any longer. It felt like hours there in the dark bathroom. Her eyes burned like the cuts. The crying hurt, the cutting hurt, the existing hurt.

She wished, more than anything, that she had the courage to end it.

She wished she had the courage to carry out Captain Aizen's wishes.


	2. Observer

Pet

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Chapter 2

_Observer_

* * *

He was the observer.

Everyone else seemed to assume that she would somehow mend on her own, but Hitsugaya Toushirou knew better. He knew her like a sister, knew her better even - or so he thought - than he knew himself.

'Captain?'

Hitsugaya ignored his lieutenant, not answering the question in her voice. For all her apparent laziness, Matsumoto Rangiku wasn't unintelligent. She would figure it out on her own.

He continued flicking through the book, looking at the pictures. They were memories more than anything, even though they weren't photographs. He could remember a time when she wouldn't have wanted him to look at them. Hinamori was intensely protective of her work, or she had been, once upon a time. Hitsugaya tried to think just how long ago "once upon a time" was now, and was shocked and saddened to realize that it would only have been a few weeks at most.

Then again, was it really that surprising?

Hitsugaya could remember it all too well. He could still feel its effects, even now, knowing she was safe, physically at least. He could still recall the anguish of it, seeing her bleeding and unconscious and close to death with Aizen standing above her like a demon in disguise.

He could still remember quite clearly the kindly smile on Aizen's face, the gleam of dark falsely sympathetic eyes behind his glasses. He could still recall the man's gentle, deep voice, the reassuring voice of a schoolteacher, the slight amusement in his eyes as he'd paused to glance at the dying girl at his feet.

_Adoration is the state furthest from understanding. _

Letting go of the sketchbook, Hitsugaya's fists tightened, the air temperature around him lowering subtly. Aizen had purposely made himself into Hinamori's personal hell.

He himself was damned if he was going to let Aizen get away with it.

'Captain?' Matsumoto repeated, sounding concerned. 'What's wrong?' Hitsugaya heard her footsteps as she drew closer. 'Oh,' she said, relief apparent in her voice. 'You're looking at them.'

Hitsugaya answered her with a curt nod. He picked up the sketchbook from where he'd let it fall on the desk. The cover had flipped shut, concealing the contents. He opened it again, finding the picture he'd been looking at before. It was a sketch of himself, younger, sitting with Hinamori back when his name for her had been Bedwetter Momo and she had called him Whitey-chan. She had done it with some sort of charcoal, filling in the shadows with watercoloured sepia.

'She gave it to me,' he said.

'Oh?' Matsumoto skirted the desk, perching herself on the arm of his chair. 'That's funny. I always thought she never really liked anyone to see her pictures.'

Hitsugaya looked up at her. He hadn't thought his lieutenant would be so perceptive. 'What makes you say that, Matsumoto?' he asked.

She shrugged. 'I only found out she was an artist when I saw her sitting behind the Fifth Squad's barracks, drawing. She never told anyone.'

Hitsugaya didn't answer. He stared at the picture, pensive. It seemed there were a lot of things Hinamori had never told anyone.

'Hinamori-chan's good, isn't she?' Matsumoto continued, looking down at the sketch. 'She could have done it for a living if she hadn't become a Shinigami.'

Hitsugaya nodded. He wondered momentarily what would have happened if Hinamori had been an artist instead.

He could picture it. They would have gone on living together in Rukongai. He would have continued to spit watermelon seeds at her, blissfully ignorant of the troublesome thing called reiatsu which would eventually grow to be the death of his grandmother. If Hinamori had never gone to the Shinigami Academy, it was unlikely Hitsugaya himself would have. In their childhood, she had always assumed the role of the older sibling, despite the fact that she was actually slightly younger than Hitsugaya was. Perhaps she would have gone to an art school in Rukongai, sold her sketches and paintings. Hitsugaya knew his reiatsu would have grown unchecked, killed his grandmother one day. That made him feel guilty for his daydream.

For a daydream it was, a regretful fantasy, a what-might-have-been. Hitsugaya knew it was because he was imagining a parallel universe where Hinamori Momo had never laid eyes on Aizen Sousuke, the masked traitor.

He turned the page. The next one was a profile, and Hitsugaya recognised the face. It was a slightly younger Kotetsu Isane. The two had shared an affinity for Kidou during their time at the Shinigami Academy, and had grown close. Hitsugaya wondered how far the older Kotetsu sister and Hinamori had moved away from each other.

Had that been Aizen's design too? Had he intended from the beginning to isolate Hinamori from all her other connections, anything that might sway her from her devotion and lead her back into the real world?

Hitsugaya sighed.

'Captain.' Matsumoto's hand was on his shoulder. 'What is it? You can tell me.'

'Nothing,' he snapped. 'I'm just tired. Can't you see that?' Hitsugaya stood up, lifting himself out of the chair. 'You'd know, Matsumoto, how much pressure I'm under,' he snarled, 'if you bothered to lift a finger to help me with the Fifth Squad's paperwork.'

Matsumoto's hand drew away. Her wide blue eyes looked taken aback, and then hurt. Hitsugaya knew he hadn't been fair to her. He'd taken on the burden of ex-Captain Aizen's paperwork himself. It had been his decision to do it, and he had never asked his lieutenant to assist him with the duty he'd volunteered for.

Gods knew Matsumoto had slacked off before, and Hitsugaya had never said a word. To be honest, he hadn't bothered to. He had considered that particular battle a lost cause.

'If you'd asked for help, I would have given it to you,' she said. Matsumoto turned on her heel, leaving the Tenth Division's Captain's Chambers behind her. Hitsugaya knew he should apologise, or at least say something, but his tongue felt thick and leaden.

He was silent as the door shut softly behind his lieutenant. He knew Matsumoto's words hadn't been solely addressed to him. Hitsugaya hadn't been the only one who'd cared for a traitor. He'd been unfair to Matsumoto in more ways than one. He should have been offering her sympathy, allowing himself to open up to her.

Hitsugaya slammed the sketchbook shut, suddenly angry. 'Why should I?' he muttered to the empty room. 'Why the hell should I?'

After all, Hinamori had never opened up to anybody. He was the observer all right, the only one who could see her lingering too close to the depths of madness.

But Hitsugaya knew he could only see a fraction of Hinamori Momo.

* * *

It's weird, writing through the eyes of people who aren't Aizen. I've been focusing so hard on getting Aizen right (which is bloody hard to do) in my story Angina/Symphony that everyone else seems ridiculously easy to capture now. This probably means I'm going to slip up and make someone OOC at some point. And I'll be really annoyed at myself when that happens.

But we'll cross that bridge when (if?) I come to it.

All better now. I _was _depressed when I started writing this chapter, but everything fixed itself. The universe has a weird way of treating me. Sometimes it's like, "Kelsey's gone unpunished for far too long. Let's mess with her." And other times it decides to cut me some slack. Which is good atm, because I need the universe to like me for the next few days. (I may be able to get out of the dreaded family holiday of doom.)


	3. Her Inception

I'm finally back from my long hiatus thanks to a torn ligament in my hand and a faulty laptop, and I'm writing many, many fanfic chapters. I'm posting something similar to this for each first new chapter for each of my different stories, just so that nobody thinks I was just being incredibly lazy for six weeks - so if you read this message on more than one of my stories, please don't think of me as boring or repetitive.

This story has quite a slow feel to it compared with my other ones, particularly since in this chapter something fairly dramatic happens and it doesn't seem to carry any sort of air of surprise with it. This is my first time writing Rangiku's POV too, so feedback is always appreciated.

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Pet

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Chapter 3

_Her Inception_

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Sometimes Matsumoto Rangiku hated Hinamori Momo.

The younger girl was lying in her lap, fast asleep, looking thin and pale and tired as she always did, as she had ever since Aizen had betrayed them all. Rangiku brushed a stray strand of hair away from Momo's face, thinking about all the times she had wanted to slap her, wanted to strike out angrily, to do anything other than endure Momo's depression in silence.

'Do you really think you're the only one?' she murmured to the empty room. 'Do you think you're the only one who's lost someone to him?'

Momo seemed to. Rangiku knew it was wrong, how couldn't she? Momo was a child. Momo had been a child when she herself had been the Tenth Division's lieutenant, the rank she'd never risen from. Rangiku had been told before that she could, if she put in the time and effort, become strong enough to take a captain's post, and they needed captains now more than ever, so wouldn't she at least consider it? In answer, Rangiku had always dodged the question, or laughed it off. She was good at that. She'd learnt to be good at that.

She'd put in the time and effort not to fall apart, and surely that was good enough for anyone.

What was wrong with _good enough_? Did everything always have to be _better_ or _best_? Back when Rangiku had still been innocent, she'd thought that in all honesty, striving to become better seemed like too much work. Why should she bother, when she was happy with herself as she was? And there was nothing wrong with being a fukutaicho. Ambition didn't interest Rangiku. She was happy where she was, spending her days avoiding the paperwork she was supposed to be doing for the Captain and spending her nights drinking with Kyouraku Shunsui and his Eighth Division.

The boy genius hadn't been happy to stay where he was, like she had been.

Everyone had wanted a piece of Ichimaru Gin to begin with. Who wouldn't? He'd passed in a year what virtually everyone else in the Gotei 13 had struggled through for six. He was an odd-looking kid too, as if to signify to anyone who saw him and didn't know his history that he was different from the rest of them. Rangiku had wanted to push everyone trying to take a piece of him out of the way, because he belonged to her and no one else.

Apparently that hadn't been the case.

She had desperately wanted to know. She had desperately wanted to pull her Gin back from the brink, away from the stark dead yellowish light of Negación, back into her arms. All the questions had tangled on her tongue, all trying to force their way out and obstructing each other in the process.

'What did he promise?' she murmured, moving her fingers through the sleeping girl's hair, stroking and combing. 'What did he offer you, Gin? What did he promise you that was better?'

_Better. _Rangiku repeated that word aloud, noted how it sounded like _bitter, _and almost laughed. She couldn't bring herself to hate Gin, and she hated that about herself. She hated so much now, where she hadn't before.

She hated herself, she hated the Central 46, she hated Momo and the Captain-Commander and the whole of Seireitei -

It seemed sometimes like she hated everyone.

Oddly enough, she never caught herself hating Aizen Sousuke himself. It was as if he were a natural disaster of sorts, something which had swept through and destroyed her life more efficiently than storm or fire or flood. It was clear enough that the former Captain Aizen had no thoughts or emotions or feelings, but was composed purely of burning ambition. That exempted him from Rangiku's hatred, because it was the effect of him rather than Aizen himself which she hated.

'What did he give you, Gin,' she whispered to the empty room, 'that was better than me?'

A tear, warm and wet, traced the curve of her cheek. Rangiku hated it too, just as she hated them all. The droplet of water lingered on her chin for a moment before falling onto Momo's face, silvering her eyelid in the moonlight through the window.

Rangiku raised her hand high above her head, allowing herself to imagine the fantasy of striking Hinamori Momo for a moment.

'You didn't even lose a real person,' she said aloud, louder than a whisper. 'You lost a lie.'

It was hardly even a lie. It was a child's bedtime story, a warm and comforting smile, a girlish first crush, that Momo had lost.

Rangiku had lost love, and now she could deal only in the bitter, better, cold coin of hate.

Her hand fell into her lap, cradling Hinamori's head. To anyone who walked in, it would look as if Rangiku were holding the younger girl gently, tenderly, like a sister.

Who would know her well enough to be able to tell otherwise? Gin, for sure. And perhaps the Captain. Hitsugaya-taichou saw more than he should, and Rangiku knew that that, as well as his reiatsu, was part of what made other people afraid of him.

Her eyelids fluttered, and she could feel a dull ache growing behind them. Sighing, Rangiku stood. It was a pleasant night, warm and moonlit, but she was too restless and melancholic to enjoy it. Her skin tingled uncomfortably as though insects were crawling underneath it, and the back of her neck felt damp and heavy with perspiration.

She wandered out of Momo's room, feeling out of sorts and wondering where else she could possibly bring up the motivation to go. She could drink, she supposed. Doubtless Kyouraku-taichou would be out tonight, and if Rangiku could recall correctly, he owed her a bottle of sake. Rangiku thought for a moment, tried to decide if she was in the mood for a night out. She decided she wasn't, and came to the depressing and lifeless conclusion that she might as well go back to her own rooms and try to sleep.

She walked back the way she'd come, seeing the dark rectangle of Momo's door open where she'd left it. Her eyes settled on the dim ghost of Momo's bed, expecting to see the younger girl's slender form curled up where she'd left it.

The bed was empty.

Rangiku stood in the doorway, her mind running through the number of innocent and highly plausible reasons that would explain Momo's absence. She knew none of them were true.

'Shit,' she murmured to the room. It wasn't an exclamation of dismay, or surprise, or sadness, but rather resignation.

Rangiku left. She would get the Captain, who would still be awake finishing the paperwork she had neglected to start. Hitsugaya-taichou would know what to do. Hitsugaya-taichou would search for her himself. Hitsugaya-taichou would feel for her himself, anxiety and worry, where Rangiku herself was incapable of shaking the slow, sluggish, selfish feeling that really, the Gotei 13 would be better off without Hinamori Momo and her broken heart.

She would get Hitsugaya-taichou, because it was the closest to the right thing to do that Rangiku was capable of doing.

* * *

I do apologise for the cliffhanger - I've just realized it's the second one I've written in as many days. If it's any consolation, there should be another chapter along soon.


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